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The most important thing that President Obama can do to improve the image of the United States in the eyes of the world is to complete the withdrawal from Afghanistan, thus ending the nation’s 12-year-long engagement in military adventurism, and avoid future entanglements unless our nation’s security faces clear-and-present danger.

Our two reasons for getting involved in the region in 2001 - killing Osama bin Laden and ousting Saddam Hussein (albeit on a false pretense) – no longer exist. It is that adventurism and the continued presence of US troops and drone strikes that continue to fan the flames of anti-Americanism in the region. Remove those troops, ground the drones and close Guantanamo and the catalysts for the anti-Americanism will largely disappear.

Unfortunately, the US troop presence in Afghanistan and the drone strikes that protect them will extend beyond Election Day. But the drawdown is underway and a less-militaristic America will be a more popular Obama.

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